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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 240046" data-attributes="member: 22">08 Apr 13: DALLAS: A Call to Arms v. 02 Dec 15: EMPIRE:  Et tu, Brute? v. 11 May 18: DYNASTY: Dead ScratchEach of this week’s soap includes a game-changing board meeting, a dramatic entrance and a shock announcement — but not necessarily in that order.The most dramatic of the dramatic entrances occurs on EMPIRE. After Lucious publicly announces that “Empire has acquired Swiftstream, the fastest and largest music streaming service in the universe”, he invites his “business partner-in-crime” Mimi Whiteman to join him onstage. She, in turn, pays tribute to someone who has been alluded to, but never before seen on screen: “I truly believe that I would not be alive today if it were not for this woman. She is my reason to live … my be-all and end-all, my lovely wife, Mrs Camilla Marks Whiteman!” As Camilla makes her way to the stage, Lucious’s smile vanishes as he realises this is the same Camilla who was sleeping with Hakeem in Season 1 before he (Lucious) banished her to England. Yes, Naomi Campbell is back! “Remember me, Lucious?” she asks sweetly before taking her place alongside Mimi.The first boardroom meeting of the week is at Ewing Energies. The family are dismayed when their banker tells them he’s sold their loan. “You sold it to whom?” demands Christopher. Right on cue, in walks Cliff Barnes. “Love a good fire sale,” he quips. “Ewing Energies is in technical default of the loan so I don’t have any choice but to call in the loan in its entirety — now.”The second and third board meetings are called by Empire’s Mimi and Carrington Atlantic’s Fallon who each voice their lack of confidence in the current CEO. “He seems to think he can get away with anything — extortion, violence, murder. Empire’s a public company, not his plaything anymore,” says Mimi of Lucious. “Firing an employee for being a so-called whistle-blower, mishandling the Clarke County crisis and then trying to cover it up by buying off the victims … Time’s up, Daddy,” Fallon tells Blake. Both women propose that a vote be taken and they be made the new CEO.Then come the angry responses. “You son of a bitch!” Christopher Ewing snarls at his uncle. “This ain’t ever gonna fly, Barnes,” adds John Ross. “This is absurd,” protests Blake. “You’re listening to a child who’s been COO for a week!” As for Lucious, he is stunned into silence by a video Mimi secretly recorded of him saying, “To hell with the damn board! … I’ll be damned if I’m gonna ask the board of directors for permission to move my pieces on my chessboard!”As Cliff tells the Ewings that “unless you can get your hands on $200,000,000 within the next twenty-four hours, I will own you,” Mimi suggests the Empire board “convene for an emergency vote tonight at 9.00 pm.” While the Lyons scramble to lobby board members before their deadline, the Ewings need to get Pamela onside before theirs. That means telling her the truth about Cliff. “She’s barely accepted the fact that her babies are gone,” John Ross protests. “If we tell her her father’s behind the explosion, she might break.” Nevertheless, he delivers the news to her personally, only for her to accuse him of “trying to manipulate me — like you always do, like we always do.” “I swear to you I’m telling the truth,” he insists. “You’ve never told the truth in your life!” she snaps back.Unlike Lucious and the Ewings, Blake isn’t given the chance to mount a defence. The CA board vote him out there and then, replacing him with Fallon. But before she can savour her victory, it’s time for another dramatic entrance as Jeff and Monica Colby march into the CA boardroom and declare, “We’re Carringtons and we’re here for what’s ours!” As Tom Carrington’s grandchildren, Jeff explains, they intend to “liquidate the company, get our money and bury the Carrington name once and for all. Our lawyers’ll be in touch.”Like Camilla on EMPIRE and Cliff on DALLAS, Liam Ridley returns to DYNASTY this week for the first time since he was exposed as Jack Lowden, clandestine biographer of the rich and dysfunctional. Actually, he and Cliff have only been gone for three episodes apiece but so much has happened it feels longer. Camilla, meanwhile, hasn’t been seen for the best part of a season. All three have some explaining to do. As Cliff apologises to his daughter for not visiting her in the hospital (“You can yell at me all you want,” he tells her. “I messed up … I’m your father and I love you”), one is reminded of the loveably sheepish, hand-flappy Cliff who would grovel to his sister whenever he screwed up on ‘80s DALLAS, only now it’s just an act to hide the cold calculating Cliff that lies beneath the surface.Neither Camilla nor Liam are welcomed back with open arms by their former lovers. “You took my father’s money and you bounced,” Hakeem tells Camilla. “You just waltz back in here with your mediocre jokes and what, I’m expected to forgive you?” Fallon asks Liam. “I did not take Lucious’s dirty bribe … he’s a filthy liar,” Camilla protests. “I never wrote about you, Fallon. You would know that if you bothered to read my manuscript … the one I gave your mother,” Liam insists. Hakeem and Fallon then realise they have been deceived by their respective parents: Lucious lied to Hakeem about Camilla and Alexis deliberately withheld Liam’s manuscript from Fallon.As Tom Carrington’s (albeit fake) grandson, Hank/Adam is also granted a share of Carrington Atlantic alongside Steven, Fallon, Jeff and Monica. Meanwhile, a subplot involving Cookie visiting her former cellmates in prison means that she is unable to make the emergency board meeting at Empire, and so she gives Hakeem her proxy to vote on her behalf. As a result, Hank and Hakeem’s votes are now pivotal to the future of their respective companies. Alexis and Cookie urge them both to side with their fathers (or fake father, in Hank’s case). “Lyon Dynasty is our company,” Cookie tells Hakeem, “but Empire is our legacy and anybody who tries to steal that from us is our enemy.” “We stand to make a helluva lot more money in the long run so I need you to vote against the sale,” explains Alexis to a slightly confused Hank, whose IQ has plummeted amusingly between episodes. However, other voices are also trying to influence Hank and Hakeem's decisions. “Hank, this deal would put billions, with a B, in each of our pockets,” Jeff tells his newly acquired fake cousin. “You’ve never known what it’s like to have money — I mean real money.” “I still believe in you,” Camilla assures her former toyboy. “You have to trust and believe me. I can take you to the next level, Hakeem, if you’re ready to go there.” As she speaks, her hand travels towards his crotch.While the rest of the Empire board wait anxiously for Hakeem to say yay or nay, he flashes back over both his season-long feud with his father and his affair with Camilla. Returning to the present, he sees Camilla through the boardroom window, silently urging him to vote against Lucious. Cookie arrives just in time to grasp what’s happening. “Hakeem, no!” she shouts. But it’s too late — Hakeem votes against his family. His father and brothers are stunned. Cookie turns to Camilla and spits in her face. The announcement is made — “Lucious Lyon, the board has voted to remove you as chairman and CEO of Empire Enterprises” — but the surprises aren’t over yet. “Now that the vote has been cast, I have another announcement to make,” Mimi declares. “As the new chairman of this board, I am turning over my proxy to my wife … She’ll be in charge of the day-to-day while I’m … undergoing chemo and radiation.” Yes, Naomi Campbell is now in control of Empire!!Back on DYNASTY, Hank chooses a quick profit over faux-family loyalty and votes to sell Carrington Atlantic. While Jeff doesn’t have a shock announcement to match Mimi’s, he does deliver a surprise apology: “Before today, all I inherited were lies that shaped almost every choice I made. I’m sorry I took that out on you, Fallon.” It’s a bit like the moment in ‘80s DALLAS when Cliff apologised to Miss Ellie for the Barnes/Ewing feud.While Blake angrily hurls a glass in Hank’s direction (“Were all my children born traitors!?”), Lucious goes one better by shooting up his study with a rifle and calling his children “lousy ungrateful sons of bitches!” “I spent my whole life preserving our family’s empire. You’ve been CEO for less than twenty-four hours and you already lost it all,” Blake tells Fallon bitterly. “All those years selling CDs out the back of a car, selling keys, moving bodies, the enormity of damage I’ve done to my soul — for what??” Lucious asks Cookie while crying angry tears. “You sacrificed seventeen years — for what??”Back on DALLAS, a desperate John Ross makes one last attempt to convince Pamela of the truth about Cliff: “You ask your father one question — why the hell would he want a company with a billion-dollar fine and technology that is not only worthless but unsafe? … He knows Christopher’s technology isn’t to blame for the explosion and there’s only one way that he could know that — because he was behind it.” Sure enough, Cliff starts crowing to Pamela about the fortune they stand to make on Christopher’s technology. To make matters worse, he then reasons that “the babies would have tied you to the Ewings forever. Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise.” Pamela says nothing but is horrified.This leads to a swoon-worthy climax at Southfork where John Ross is looking broodily out at the rain and sees a devastated Pamela standing there, soaking wet. “You were right,” she cries. “My father killed my babies.” This recalls one of the very best scenes in FALCON CREST, which also took place between two star-cross'd lovers in a rainstorm when a heavily pregnant Melissa showed up on Cole’s doorstep and collapsed in his arms. Before Pamela has a chance to do the same, John Ross sweeps her off her feet and carries her inside the house. After they’ve made love, she lies in his arms and vows revenge against her father: “I wanna hurt him as much as he’s hurt me.” Meanwhile, Cookie holds Lucious as he threatens to kill their youngest son. “I want him dead,” he sobs.Just as last week’s DYNASTY ended with the surprise return of the previously dead Matthew Blaisdel, this week’s DALLAS concludes with the tantalising prospect of another resurrection as it emerges that somebody with Pam’s handwriting has an active bank account in Switzerland. “Christopher, your mother’s alive!” gasps Elena.Minor theme of the week #1: Gay men and the women they sleep with. “She fixed you!” says Lucious joyfully when he correctly guesses that something intimate has occurred between Jamal and Alicia Keys. Alicia Keys, however, understands that Jamal is still gay: “I know you wouldn’t feel about a woman the way you felt about, um, tell me his name again?” “Michael,” he replies wistfully. “No, I wouldn’t.” Michael, of course, is also Sam on DYNASTY whom Steven is about to marry when Melissa Daniels, the senator’s wife he was obliged to sleep with earlier in the season for reasons that now escape me, informs him that she is carrying his child. “I don’t expect you to call all this off,” she assures him. “Let’s talk after.”The last third of New DYNASTY’s Season 1 finale feels like a mashup of some of Soap Land’s Greatest Hits, with a fresh twist or two thrown in along the way. After Hank votes to sell Carrington Atlantic, he and Alexis get into an argument that plays like a funny version of Tommy Sutter and Pamela’s last fight on New DALLAS. (“I cut off my finger for you!” “Half a finger!”) That scene ended in violence and gunfire and so does this one, but not before Cristal walks in to find Hank planting a kiss on his fake mother’s lips. “I guess incest runs in the family,” she remarks. “Get out, Hank, your mommy and I need to talk.” Cristal then proceeds to list some of Alexis’s many wrongdoings in much the way Sue Ellen did JR’s in the Season 2 finale of ‘80s DALLAS. “You drove Gary away. And now Bobby. You tried to bribe Valene. You cheated your friends. You’ve done everything in your power to get what you wanted,” Sue Ellen said then. “You tried to drive a wedge between Steven and Sam. You did your best to destroy my marriage with Blake. You even pitted your own children against each other … You’ve done nothing but tear this family apart since the day you arrived,” Cristal says now. JR responded by questioning his wife’s sanity (“I honestly think you’ve lost your reason“) and Alexis does the same. “Honestly, I think you need to be medicated,” she tells Cristal. “The truth is, Alexis,” Cristal shoots back, “I’m a much better mother to your children than you ever were!” And then, underscored by Pat Benatar’s ‘We Belong’ (a song covered by Cathy Geary on KNOTS LANDING) and intercut with Steven and Sam’s wedding ceremony, it begins — a recreation of Alexis and Krystle’s original 1982 catfight, with all the slapping, screaming, smashing, yanking, pulling, tearing and “you crazy bitch”ing one could ask for. But in this case, there are no clear victors. Cristal may win the physical fight, but is obliged to concede that her days as a Carrington are at an end: “My marriage to Blake may be over, but at least I’ll have the satisfaction of telling him what a monster you are before I go.” Alexis, however, denies her even this victory by locking her in the loft before she has a chance to tell Blake anything.Minor theme of the week #2: Pregnant women who are violently unstable. On EMPIRE, Anika continues to keep her own condition a secret, but is barely able to contain her jealousy as Rhonda describes how excited Lucious is over her pregnancy: “I am telling you, he is just obsessed with this grandchild … He actually refers to him as ‘the heir’!” Back on DYNASTY, Matthew helps Claudia escape from the sanatarium. They then sneak into the Carrington Manor during the wedding preparations but soon get into an argument over Cristal: “Is that why you wanted to come here — so you could see her again?” asks Claudia angrily. “Oh my God! You sprung me from a loony bin so I could have your baby and you could raise it with her!” Over on EMPIRE, a shadowy intruder with an Anika-shaped hairstyle breaks into Andre and Rhonda’s swanky new mansion, creeps up behind Rhonda and pushes her down the swanky new staircase. It’s a genuinely shocking moment — a cross between Judith Ryland’s recent tumble and Cliff Barnes blowing up his grandkids. Back on DYNASTY, Claudia smashes her way into the loft where Alexis has imprisoned Cristal. She has a gun which she aims at Cristal. Matthew then appears and steps in front of it, but Claudia pulls the trigger anyway — at which point Matthew dissolves into thin air and we realise two things simultaneously: that he was a ghost/vision/hallucination all along, and that Cristal is standing there with a dirty great bullet hole in her stomach. At the same time, the rest of the Carringtons are having their wedding pictures taken in the room above while a mysterious someone sets the building on fire. As they try to escape, they realise they’re locked inside (it’s like a combination of both of ‘80s DYNASTY’s fiery season finales, but on a grander scale). Meanwhile, Cristal lies trapped in the loft, bleeding or suffocating or burning to death — or maybe all three.And this week’s Top 3 are … very, very close ...1 (3) EMPIRE2 (2) DALLAS3 (1) DYNASTY</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?